Has The Straight Talk Express Stalled?

Or can John McCain regain momentum and win the White House in 2008? We ask the senator about the "surge"; his new best buddy, George W. Bush; and some very unmavericklike shifts in his positions

At 70 years old, with stiff joints, a wispy head of white hair, and massive injuries from the five and a half years he spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—injuries that prevent him from raising his arms above his head—John McCain won't exactly be the spring chicken of the 2008 presidential election. In fact, if he wins, he'll be the oldest man ever to move into the White House—older, even, than Ronald Reagan in 1980, and just two years shy of the national life expectancy for men.

But to spend a few hours in McCain's company is to realize that youth and vigor are two very different things. Inside the U.S. Capitol, McCain is an almost cartoonish flurry of energy, rarely spending more than a few minutes in his office and preferring to zip through the corridors at a sprinter's pace, popping in on other members to twist arms and soothe egos before dashing back to the Senate subway for another visit with another member in another part of the complex, pausing briefly along the way to shake a hand, slap a back, or shout a friend's name down the echoing marble hallways.

On a recent Tuesday evening, with three votes scheduled on the Senate floor and a bevy of testy issues looming on the horizon (including his off-party support for a guest-worker program and his undying endorsement of an unpopular war), McCain was moving at full throttle, tearing around the Capitol on foot and by rail, checking in with colleagues and dashing into the chamber to vote, but always coming back where he left off: to hold forth on the perils of South Carolina, the obstinacy of Donald Rumsfeld, and the hot-button social positions he has ("not") changed in his quest for 2008.

You recently said Don Rumsfeld was one of the worst defense secretaries in history. How could you be so cruel to such a sweet and innocent man

Hah! For three and a half years, this war has been mismanaged. I saw that from the beginning. I went over there in August of 2003, and I came back and said to Rumsfeld, "If it keeps going this way, we're going to have a disaster on our hands. We've got to hire more people, we've got to stop the looting." We didn't do any of it.

**Isn't it a little unfair to pin all the blame on Rumsfeld I don't think Truman's plaque said, "The buck stops at the Pentagon." **

Well, of course the president is responsible, but mistakes have been made in every war. MacArthur with Chinese coming across the Yalu River. Lincoln with McClellan. Roosevelt with Pearl Harbor.

**So what did he do or not do, specifically **

Come on, just look at Fiasco. Read Cobra II. All of this has been written.

**A lot of things have been written that you might not agree with. **

Well, I totally subscribe to everything in Cobra II and Fiasco. They are accurate depictions of this train wreck. They didn't have enough troops. They bypassed Anbar Province. They failed to stop the looting, which was a total breakdown in civilized society. They fired all the Baathists.

**Are these things that Rumsfeld could have predicted would backfire **

I knew about them.

**But other people at the time were saying, "No, if we put too many troops in and we do this with a heavy hand, it will increase the likelihood of an insurgency because we'll be seen as occupiers." **

I heard that argument, and I rejected it. It was counter to every rule of warfare. When I went over there in 2003, I looked at the situation, came back, and had breakfast with Secretary Rumsfeld. I said, "Look, things are going to go bad here unless you get more boots on the ground."

**Did he listen **

Of course he didn't! He rejected my statements out of hand. Just like he rejected General Shinseki out of hand. Just like he dismissed a whole bunch of retired generals.

**In the past, you opposed any "surge" of fewer than 30,000 troops. Now you support the president's surge plan with 20,000. What changed **

I still think it would be better if we had more troops. But I looked General Petraeus in the eye, and he said we have enough. So I don't dispute that. But I would still love to have more.

**The polls indicate that Americans oppose this plan. Do you believe those polls **

Sure. Americans are angry and frustrated.

**Then how can you support sending the military on a mission that the American people don't support **

Because I know what's best for the security of this nation. And if we don't show signs of success, the American public will force us to pull out.

**It seems like the American people tried to force you to pull out, with their votes in the midterm elections. **

I think they were frustrated because we were deploying a bad strategy.

**So you think the message of the midterms was about the strategy and not the war itself **

No, I think the message of the midterms was that the American people didn't want any more out-of-control spending and corruption. Lieberman could never have been elected in a state like Connecticut if the message was just about Iraq.

**Okay, that's fair. But if you're saying that the American people have a problem with the strategy and not the war, the polls we just talked about indicate that they don't like the new strategy, either. **

I think Americans don't pay close attention. They see the crawl across the screen, and they know that we've been there a long time, and they're frustrated.

**Shouldn't they be allowed to decide when it's over **

If that were the theory, we would have stopped the Civil War, we would not have pursued the truce in Korea… We're a democracy, but we elect leaders. And the president is the commander in chief. The Congress has the right to cut off funding if they want.

**Are you surprised that the Democrats haven't done that **

No, because the American people don't support it.

**But they don't support the war, either. **

Well, I just don't see how you say you support the troops but you don't support their mission and you think they're going to fail.

**A lot of the veterans in this building who oppose the war see parallels with Vietnam. Do you **

I certainly see parallels as far as increasing opposition at home.

**What about patrolling a far-flung civil war **

I spiritedly disagree with the notion that Vietnam was a civil war. It was aggression from the North Vietnamese, aided by two superpowers.

**Right, but in this case the opposition is also sponsored by foreign states. **

This is an insurgency. I never accepted the thesis that the Vietnam War was an insurgency. After the Tet offensive, it was mainly conducted by NVA soldiers with supplies from China and Russia.

**Even so, can't Iraq be an insurgency and a civil war **

You can describe it in a lot of ways.

**How would you describe it **

In Anbar Province, you've got Al Qaeda Sunnis against the United States. In Baghdad, you've got sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. In Basra, you've got Shia militia assisted by Iranians. In the Kurdish area, you've got basically a calm situation. So I don't think you can describe it in one phrase. See what I mean

**I do, but a civil war doesn't have to be highly coordinated, does it A civil war can be chaos among competing factions. **

But I don't think you'd call what you've got in Anbar Province a civil war in any way. And I know this: Sectarian violence is what was taking place in Bosnia. Sectarian violence is what was taking place in Kosovo.

**But we had, and still have, a bazillion men over there. **

Overwhelming force! That's what I'm saying.

**Okay, talk to me about 2008. According to a recent Newsweek poll, Giuliani is twenty-five points ahead of you. What's going on with that **

Well, he's an American hero, and he's a very popular figure.

**But it's not a one-man race, so it's not just about his popularity. It's about yours, too. **

I think that people will, at the end of the day, judge us on our record and our vision. But I certainly understand his popularity. He rallied the nation after 9/11. I mean, he's a legitimate American hero.

**It seems like he also benefits from not being called the architect of the surge every day in the press. **

Look, I'm always in the arena. You just do the best you can.

**Last time you entered the presidential arena, South Carolina got pretty hot. What do you think happened **

I was beaten by President Bush because he had the financial and political base. He lost in New Hampshire, and shortly thereafter in Michigan, but he had the strong financial and political base to withstand the shock.

**What about the other things that happened in South Carolina Being called "the fag candidate" and having your wife accused of drug abuse, having your child slandered by the opposition **

I put those things behind me. There's no reason to pull them back in anger.

Whether he is or not, I have no further comment except to say that I've put our differences behind us.

**But he's still out there saying the same things, isn't he I mean, just the other day, he said that Satan was using global warming to distract evangelicals from their mission. **

I don't think that was Falwell.

**It was Falwell. **

Well, I don't have to agree with him. My message to Liberty was tolerance. And when I spoke at the New School, my message was tolerance. You know what I got there I got the faculty turning their chairs away. I got catcalls. At least at Liberty, I was politely received.

**All right, you're not pandering to the right. But what about Mitt Romney Do you really think he's changed his mind about the whole world **

I have not watched his campaign. I don't know what he's done or hasn't done.

**He says he was wrong to support gay rights and abortion rights. **

I haven't paid attention.

**Come on. You know who you're running against. **

At this stage, we're trying to establish a political and financial base. But I'm sure when the debates come up, we'll discuss those issues.

**It's going to be hard to debate him if he pretends to agree with you. **

I base my campaign on my record and my vision, not on anybody else's.

**Let's look at your record, then. Tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you oppose gay marriage and at the same time oppose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. How do you parse those two things **

Because I'm a federalist, and I think it should be decided by the states.

**Then why do you oppose gay marriage personally **

Let's put it this way: I support the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

**Look at the Declaration and the words "all men are created equal." The word men referred to white male landowners. Today it refers to either gender, any race, any class. So these words have expanded in meaning, right **

Well, some people may make that argument. There may be… I have frankly not contemplated it in that context.

**Let's talk flag burning. You supported an amendment to make it illegal. **

I oppose desecration of the flag.

**Almost everybody opposes it. But lots of people support the right to be an asshole and burn it anyway. Why don't you **

Because the flag is unique. It's a symbol of service and sacrifice by many generations of Americans who have fought under it. It deserves to be kept from desecration.

**What about burning copies of the Declaration Or the Constitution It's a slippery slope, isn't it **

I don't know, but it just…the ag is just… That's the extent of my…

**I keep my flag out all night. That's against flag etiquette. Should I be put in jail **

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